


Allegiance

by WereRabbit



Series: Vigilance [1]
Category: GW2 - Fandom, Guild Wars 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, gw2 stories, gw2 tyria
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-09-20 00:10:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9466802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WereRabbit/pseuds/WereRabbit
Summary: Sometimes, we experience turning points in our lives. Seldom are we prepared for them.





	

Four hours. Four hours that the warband had hiked through the overpass from the Plains of Ashford, and while no one said it, no one was eager for their mission. Blazeridge Steppes was baked by the dry sun, dirt cracking like dead leaves beneath their feet and blowing away with the harsh chill of the Autumn wind, and with each breath swallowed Lyza could feel her nose and throat chapping. 

The Iron warband had received instructions from their centurion to travel to the Lowland Burns with supplies for the Sentinels stationed there, and while they had informed them of the severity of the mission and how crucial helping to keep the stationed forces prepared was, Lyza could not help but feel that this was punishment. As the Legionnaire reported to the rest of her band, their look of shock and deep sigh of resignation told her they did as well. But they were a band of guardians and warriors and engineers, forged hard by their years scrapping and proven worth with their knowledge and mechanical prowess (so they had been told), and that they were given high respect and trust to be put on such a mission (they were assured again and again as they were loaded up with artillery and food crates).

And now, after four hours of leaving behind anything that resembled home, the warband stared at a dark, crystalline expanse, shrouded in an endless storm with purples as dark as a bruise and carved deep as a fatal wound. It was the first time stones had made Lyza uneasy. 

“Alright everyone, ready up” she turned to face her comrades and waved her hand forward, calling the back members and their supply crates forward to the edge of the sharp landscape, “The camp at Lowland Burns is just across the Dragonbrand, and we’re not about to let some ugly dirt and sharp grass scare us away. Iron, move out!” Two-dozen clawed feet thundered against the ground, fine, jagged shards that used to be plant life breaking like glass beneath them. It didn’t take a Sylvari to know that the earth beneath them felt sick - each step sent something through Lyza’s bones, and it was as though the bruise they were walking on was their own. 

The storm that rumbled overhead seemed to grow louder, but the warband paid it no mind - the destination was less than a mile away, they could see the banners of the camp over the cracked crystal bubbles and broken ground. “Don’t slow down! We’re almost-”

The famous last words didn’t even have a chance to finish by the time they were crushed against the ground by some invisible force. The charr with the supply crates were knocked to their side, barely avoiding the falling boxes beside them, and Lyza was flattened, knocking her jaw against the head of her flamethrower. Her jaw throbbed, but it was nothing compared to the sheer weight of the world that pressed on her back. 

The sun was gone. There was a scream; There was a booming, thunderous crash, as though the earth was howling in pain.

There was a Dragon right above them.  
Lyza had no words to describe the sight of it, no good ones anyway. It was black, and it was shining, and it was roaring and it was loud, and even trying to look up at it hurt Lyza’s neck. And there was no training for this. She had learned to war against ghost and humans and charr and everything else, but right now she was an ant against a mountain. Fear ran its bony finger down her spine, and her lungs grew cold until her next breath. 

“Iron,” Lyza’s shout scraped her throat as she fought to gulp in air, “stand your ground!” She couldn’t even stand herself, hardly lifted off the ground as her legs seemed to fail her. They had no plan now - they were cornered, and running wasn’t an option. She would - they all would die before running. If this was where they lay to rest..... Well, this’ll just be something. “For the Legions!” Lyza shouted, picking up her flamethrower and shooting out a burning ball of napalm at it’s face. The fireball burst against its skin and dissipated into the air like a matches’ flame, it’s skin as pristine and black and horrible as it was before. Her eyes widened and her teeth grit, but she ran forward, closing the distance between her and the behemoth as she lifted her flamethrower and aimed it at its face, pulling the trigger and shooting another blast of the burning napalm. The fireball hit its eye, and the beast flinched and moaned some unearthly noise, but before Lyza could cheer, the dragon shook the flame off and turned its mirror white eyes to look at her. Fuck. 

The dragon needn’t lunge at her, it’s steps and snapping teeth shaking the earth and closing the distance between life and death. Lyza shrieked, scrambling across the crystalline wasteland and cutting herself on the sharp glass shrubs around her. The dragon opened its giant maw; Inside it the world was white and horrible, and the air that came from it sharp and pricking at her skin like needles. This was the end - it had to be. She would be eaten by a dragon, fed to another force, remembered as a soldier and forgotten - and dammit, she didn’t want to die. She lifted her flamethrower and aimed in gaping mouth before her, finger tense against the trigger. 

The charr opened her mouth, her shriek piercing the rumbling of earth and the great maw before her. “Die in fire!” The trigger was pulled. Fire roared. The dragon swallowed everything. Lyza would die.

Something whined. It was faint until suddenly it wasn’t, and then a an explosion erupted on the side of the dragon’s head, knocking it back away from the doomed charr. The dragon roared, shaking the flame and debris from it’s face. It was burnt, damaged, crystalline hide ripped from its skull.

“Vigil!” A voice boomed out, and when Lyza turned, she saw a wave of black, shining armor, waving banners of flame. “Nice shot! Left flank, reload your cannons! Right flank, fire in three, two, one-!” A shining boulder shot out, flying like a meteor and colliding now with the dragon’s neck. The beast fell back, shooting out its blinding breath at its assailants. Without a word uttered, a blue wall came up before the mob, reflecting the glass-fire back onto the earth before them. “Left flank, aim for the chest! Three, two, one!” Another shot rang out and crashed against the breast of the dragon, and it coughed and hacked as it struggled to find its breath once more. Lyza watched in awe as the creature stumbled, her own warband tossed aside and struggling to get up. 

Lyza forced herself to her feet, each bone screaming with pain as she did, and yelled out to her warband. “Iron Band, get up or die! Use all your artillery now!” The fallen charr lifted their broken bodies and roared, taking their weapons and aiming it at the wounded behemoth. “Fire!” Lyza yelled, and in the distance, the sound of another cannon blasted into the air. The charr below fired all of their rifles at the neck of the beast, and Lyza’s fireball hit true with the meteor. The dragon’s face cracked and fell, shards of crystal slipping from it’s face, it’s jaw and neck cracking. It shrieked, more unearthly and deafening than before, and with a beat of its wings it took to the skies, leaving behind its broken face and a crater where it stood.

The charr stood there speechless as she watched the broken dragon ascend, disappearing into a speck beyond the clouds and taking the storm with it. She gaped - she ached, she almost couldn’t breathe. She was alive. 

“Hey!” A deep voice called, the one that commanded the canons, and when Lyza turned she saw a large black charr with folded arms leading a troop behind him. “You! Are you and your warband alright?”

On instinct, Lyza turned and saluted, shouting back with the last of her breath, “Sir! We were caught off guard and damaged. I need to go and check with my warband to make sure they are all alright.”

The black charr nodded his head to his companions, a small sylvari and a large norn, and soon the two dashed off to where the other charr lay. “Our Medics will go and check them out, and our camp is nearby. Who are you and what business brought you to the Brand?”

“Legionnaire Lyzaret Ironmouth of the Iron Legion, sir! My warband and I came to deliver supplies to the outpost at Lowland Burns, sir!” Lyza felt lightheaded, her pounding chest taking all the blood from her head.

“Ha, so you’re the company that was supposed to come? Oddsdottir! Get Burnforge and Fiskarsson to help them carry back the supplies.” A white haired norn woman saluted and went off as well, collecting her companions and making off to the fallen supplies. “Ironmouth, go and gather your warband. You’re coming with us back to the Outpost.” The grizzled charr smiled from beneath his gleaming helmet. “I’m Warmaster Odius Smoketail. The Vigil welcomes you.”


End file.
